Godzilla marathon planned; rock posters exhibit debuts

Godzilla has already invaded Tokyo and New York. Thanks to a creative 13-year-old, Toledo is next on his list.

This summer, the Maumee Indoor Theater will have a week-long marathon of Godzilla films.

Ty Szumigala, the executive director of the theater, credits the idea of hosting the marathon, dubbed “Godzillathon,” to Connor Krix, a rising eighth grader.

Krix pitched the idea to Szumigala a few months ago.

The proposal immediately caught his interest.

“I had to smile and laugh, and thought, I’m going to call him up and see if we can do something this summer!” said Szumigala.

The originality and creativity of the idea intrigued him.

“It just felt right, and I don’t know why,” he said.

The marathon holds special significance for Krix because a display in front of the theater will give moviegoers information on autism.

Krix has Asperger’s syndrome, an Autism Spectrum Disorder.

His mother suggested placing a display in the theater during the marathon. Szumigala liked the idea — he has had several employees with autism — but had no idea that Krix had Asperger’s syndrome.

“She paused for a minute and said, ‘You hadn’t realized’?” he said.

The display will have information from the Autism Society on the disorder and a place for people to leave donations.

Krix said he hopes that by helping organize the marathon, other kids who have Asperger Syndrome will see that they are capable of great things.

Krix described himself as “a huge Godzilla fan.”

“Nothing can compare to him,” he said.

His dad showed him a Godzilla film for the first time when he was 2 years old. Throughout the years, his love for films featuring the monster has grown. His favorite film featuring Godzilla is “Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II.”

He enjoys films from the ’70s and ’80s.

“I think that the classics need to be brought back,” he said.

When he heard that a movie theater in Detroit hosted a similar marathon, he decided to suggest that the Maumee Indoor Theater bring the monster to Toledo. After thinking over the idea, he mentioned it to his parents and two younger brothers, age 6 and 9. They all agreed that it was a good idea.

Szumigala said Krix has been involved in every aspect of the organization of the marathon — he even wrote the press release for the event —, adding that he is passionate about the project and conscientious about planning meetings for the two to discuss it.

“He’s a Johnny on the spot,” he said.

From June 21-25, the Maumee Indoor Theater will host a marathon of Godzilla films. Nine films will hit the big screen, two every day with one shown twice. Tickets will be $3.50 or $25 for a week’s worth of classic monster fun. They will run on the theater’s largest screen, with an audience capacity of 500. The films will show in the early and late afternoons: noon and 2 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Thursday and Friday.

This is the theater’s first foray into showing specialized films. Szumigala said the theater may have another marathon, perhaps featuring the “Star Wars” films.

TMA debuts psychedelic posters

For anyone who missed Woodstock, ’60s and ’70s rock band posters will be on display at the Toledo Museum of Art all summer.

The exhibit is called “Psychedelic 60s: Posters from the Rock Era” and will feature 150 original posters, mostly from the San Francisco area, said Amy Gilman, curator of modern and contemporary art at the museum.

“What I’d love for people to do is come expecting to have fun, and come with an open mind,” Gilman said. “[The posters are] more complicated than they originally appear.”

“Psychedelic” art, Gilman said, comes from “the era when people started experimenting with colors that hadn’t normally been put together … reds and greens, that sort of vibrate your vision, that produce visual effects, kind of psychedelic visual effects.”

Many of the posters have nearly unreadable text, she said, “because they’ve hidden the words or made the words sort of complicated to read, and I think that’s part of [the effect] as well.”

Free for members and $15 for non-members, the opening party will take place June 10. The party will include refreshments, music, cash bar, lights show and beaded curtains.

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on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 3:21 pm and is filed under Exhibits, Film, Star.
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Asperger’s Syndrome is not an “autism-like affliction”, and I find it insulting that Mary Petrides and Betsy Woodruff were too ignorant to at least describe it correctly. An affliction? Please. It’s a syndrome, a disorder, but not an affliction.

Asperger’s Syndrome is on the autism spectrum, so it IS autism, just a different form. People with Asperger’s are higher functioning that what the general public usually hears about. Yes, they can talk, they can function in society better than some other people who have autism.

Please don’t insult those of us who live with autism every day of our lives by belittling us by publishing such ignorant statments.

As a professional journalist and mother to a son with Aspgerger’s Syndrome I need to point out two things that undercut the beauty of this story.

Asperger’s is not “an autism-like affliction.” It’s an Autism Spectrum Disorder – a type of autism. And they’re not “several autistic employees” they are “several employees with autism.” People always come before disabilities.